Why on earth does India want to change the name of all these well known major cities. that are famous all over

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Voice of Reason

I guess people like their towns and cities to have names in their native language. And what reasonable person could blame them?

Gone fishin'

Well Indian cities had names in the beginning., Then the British came and renamed them so they could pronounce them more easier or named them after British people who meant nothing to the Indians. So the Brits left and the Indians decided to go back to the real original names.

mochachocolata

the name "bombay" was officially given by the british b/c it was easier to pronounce. but Indians always called it "mumbai". probably the same with kolkata (calcutta). they just want the name to be the same as how it is known on the streets.

Difi

To Priya_me,
When the portugies left the place they said BOOM BAY that means GOOD BY and from that time we called the city as BOMBAY. but what is the meaning of MUMBAI, i don`t know. can anybody help?

Jasmine S

British peope changed it so they could pronounce them more easier

*helpaneed*The british controlled India.So there was not much to discuss about with them*

rdra62

politicians want to satisfy their stupid egos and citizens are too lazy to protest,........... what difference does it make whether we call bombay or mumbai ?at the bombay international airport there no doctor or ambulance facility for passengers last months 2 people sufferd cardic arrest and dies on bombay airport

helpaneed

I think Mojo above is right in his answer.

It is for the locals to decide what names they wish to have for their places than the outsiders to impose their likes and dislikes, convenience or inconvenience etc. Whatever reason is given for or against, let the locals have the privilege to decide.

dumberthangeorgebush

They're not changing the names of their cities, they're just correcting the translated version, given to these towns by the British, to make it sound right.
It's not only India that has been given bad translations, see also Beijing (previously known in English as Peking)

misspimousse

well this is slightly off the subject but i get really annoyed when i see my hometown of marseille spelt 'marseilles', same with lyon/'lyons', i really don't see why english-speaking people need to do this.
i think there is a worldwide tendency now to actually spell places' names the way they are in the country's language, and i can only approve of that :)

pradeep549

There is a little mix up here.
One issue is renaming - i.e. from whatever to Madras by british and from Madras to Chennai recently.
Second issue is intentional spelling changes to make them more comfortable to rulers' toungue like Mumbai to Bombay.

Renaming takes place all the time like Burma to Myanmar, Balkan countries' names, A number of Gulf states etc. Most of the renaming remained stuck but some wisely and some foolishly try to go back in time. How much back one can go ? This example should explain the situation, everybody knows that earlier name of Ahmedabad was Karnavati. But that does not mean that Karnavati was original name, there must have been a name before Karnavati also, and one before that also. And if Ahmedabad has been accepted by local population (that means people of India), not caused by foreign accent, not imposed by misspelling, there is no need to turn the clock back.

Situation with misspellings and pronounciation convenience is a different matter. So if Dilli is mispronounced Delhi and Mumbai is mispronounced as Bombay, Beijing is mispronounced as Peking and spelled accordingly, there is no harm in correcting those errors, particularly when the errors are of recent origin and immediate preceding name has not been obliterated from local memory.

Xamanator

Stupid if you ask me. A real third world trick. The Germans don't worry if we say Cologne for Koln; the Italians don't care if we say Naples instead of Napoli.

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